Benjamin Shmueli has posted Tort
Litigation Between Spouses: Let's Meet Somewhere in the Middle, 15 Harvard
Negotiation Law Review__ (forthcoming 2010), on SSRN.Here is the abstract:

In the past, and, to a certain extent, even at
present, immunities existed in common law against tort litigation within the
family. Is it appropriate today to block such claims, or should they be
considered in the same way as any other tort suit? The present essay will
address this question, by examining the possibility of establishing a delicate
balance between the individualistic approach, which focuses on realizing the
autonomy of the individual to sue for harm done to him, and the
family-collectivist approach, which attempts to determine what is best for the
family as a whole, and is concerned that legal intervention in its affairs may be
more detrimental than beneficial.

The assumption in this essay will be that, although
we are talking of a claim under tort law, rather than under family law, and
that this claim may be consistent with the goals of tort law, one cannot ignore
the fact that this is not a suit involving two strangers. Moreover, since these
are particularly charged, emotional claims, the real remedy desired may at
times not be financial compensation at all, but some other remedy, an emotional
one, which the law cannot provide, but which might be provided specifically
through extrajudicial proceedings. But requiring the parties to take part in
such a proceeding under the auspices of the court (e.g. mandatory mediation) is
itself problematic, since these are essentially voluntary proceedings.

I will propose a desirable model that balances the
two approaches, the individualistic and the family. This model will present a
theoretical and practical framework for hearing such claims, applicable to the
different stages of tort proceedings in the courts, while also making use, in
the framework of such proceedings, of quasi-mandatory extrajudicial processes.